How to Attract the Best, Most Overlooked Clients
These prospects account for more than half of personal wealth.
Women comprise nearly half of the labor force, over half the college campus population, and more than half of personal wealth.
The number of wealthy women in the United States is growing twice as fast as wealthy men.
If you aren’t making them a vital part of your business, you’re definitely missing out.
Wired Differently
Finding female clients and prospects doesn’t have to be difficult, but you do need to understand that women and men are different.
Women tend to process their decisions more thoroughly than men do.
They want to think it through, compare their options, and focus on the long-term benefits of their decision.
Men want to take action, prioritize their options, and focus on immediate gains.
Men tend to favor growing their retirement savings while women prioritize security and longevity.
Women have often been wrongly stereotyped as emotional and overreacting.
In actuality, men are the ones who tend to panic with a market downturn, try timing the market, or trade too frequently.
In fact, between the two genders, women tend to be better investors, better savers, and start saving at a younger age.
Somehow, even though women are better investors, less emotionally driven, and better savers, they’re largely ignored by the industry, with only 37% of women working with a financial professional.
4 Life Stages
When focusing on women, it’s important to meet them where they are in their life cycle.
Four of the most common female demographic groups you will encounter are single and underserved, married but not involved, divorced, and widowed.
1. Single and Underserved
Being single used to be viewed as a bad thing, but women are now single by choice. Marriage rates are at an all-time low, meaning more women are single than ever before.
Being unmarried shouldn’t disqualify women from being valued clients. They could have a successful career, be looking for financial guidance, but are still underserved.
2. The Uninvolved Wife
Next, we have the group you’re probably most familiar with: women who are married but aren’t involved in the financial decisions.
If they aren’t involved, have you considered whether they want to be involved but just don’t feel included? It’s important to address both partners in the relationship.
Traditional roles have, and are, shifting.
The majority of mothers now work outside the home, and many of them are the primary breadwinners in their household.
It’s time to start including these women in the conversations; after all, they probably have more input than you think.
3. Divorced Women
Another downfall of not addressing women in a marriage is if the marriage ends in divorce.
Marriages end in divorce roughly 50% of the time, and gray divorce is trending in a big way.
If you ignored the woman while she was married, do you think she’ll turn to you for advice now that she’s divorced? Finances are the leading cause of divorce in the U.S.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Many other financial professionals have also ignored their female clients, so this could be your opportunity to add some new clients to your book of business.
4. Widows
The last highly underserved group of women is widows.
This group may or may not have been involved in their finances until the death of their loved one.
Was their level of involvement their choice, or did you unintentionally ignore them for years? This demographic could be another that is lost due the residual effects of potentially feeling you “overlooked them in the past”.
On average, women live longer than men, and 80% switch financial professionals within a year of their spouse’s death.
Hearing this tells us that it’s only a matter of time before you lose these women as clients, unless you start actively including them in financial planning.
Nurturing Newfound Relationships
When you’re talking with your new female clients or prospects, there may be a few things holding them back from grabbing hold of their retirement plan.
Women may have a few mental obstacles they are trying to overcome:
- They feel less aware of their retirement options than their counterparts.
- They feel less financially secure than men.
- They feel less knowledgeable about their finances.
This is not to say that these are true statements.
This is simply how they may be feeling.
It’s up to you to help them increase their confidence in their financial plan.
Research shows that women are looking for a financial professional who is financially savvy, values relationships and personal interactions, and who brings partnership and knowledge-sharing to the table.
Each female client wants to understand what you’re recommending, feel that you truly understand their situation, and can help them find a solution that is perfect for her and her family.
To help build their confidence and foster these new relationships, it’s important to encourage questions, actively listen, be empathetic to their situation, and, most importantly, stop making assumptions about their level of knowledge.
By doing these things, you may see your list of female clients begin to grow.
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(Image: bakhtiarzein/Adobe Stock)